“A report from AllThingsD in early April indicated that AppGratis’ rejection from the App Store was just the first phase of a much wider crackdown, which was today confirmed by PocketGamer.biz after Apple began rejecting apps that feature tools for “filtering, bookmarking, searching, or sharing recommendations.”

“App Discovery is very hard. But app store top rankings (on iOS mostly) are known as the Holy Grail of discovery. Unless you get featured by Apple or Google, this is the second most effective way to get discovered. Anyone who has already reached the top 25 rank of a given country store knows exactly what we mean. They generate pure organic downloads (sometime twice what you would normally get by not getting there) without much effort because millions of users are checking them every day. Leader boards are popular, and rightly so.”

“IF WE DON’T CREATE SOME STANDARDS FOR APP DISCOVERY AND PROMOTION, USERS ARE GOING TO LOSE FAITH
The recent hype around the removal of Appgratis from the iOS App Store has ignited a debate about app discovery and promotion and its importance to both users and developers. There are simply way too many apps for our little minds to process (and fingers to digest) and consumers need a better way to find them. (Disclosure: I co-founded a non-paid app discovery service called Appsfire.) But better app discovery depends completely on the trust of users. This can be achieved only if the players involved – namely ad networks and developers – can agree on higher standards for transparently promoting apps and preventing abuse and misleading practices.”